Saturday, February 15, 2014

Minister writes to Magdalene nuns for third time seeking contribution to redress scheme

Minister for Justice Alan Shatter
has written for a third time to the four religious congregations that
ran Magdalene laundries seeking a contribution to the Government
compensation scheme for women who worked in the laundries.

In a written reply to a question from Labour TD Anne Ferris,
the Minister said: “I discussed this matter with representatives of the
four religious congregations in June 2013. Having reflected on the
matter, all four declined to make a contribution. Following
a discussion of the issue at Government in July 2013, I wrote to the
congregations expressing disappointment that they had decided not to
make a financial contribution . . . The congregations responded
reaffirming their position.”

UN committee

He continued: “I wrote
to the religious congregations again on this matter two weeks ago
following a statement made by the Holy See to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in relation to the Magdalene laundries. I am awaiting responses to this letter.”

Last
week, in its report on the Holy’s See’s handling of the clerical child
sex abuse issue, the UN committee concluded that Rome should hold an
internal investigation into the “religious personnel” who ran the
laundries and also ensure “full compensation be paid to victims and
their families”.

This call was supported by the
Irish Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog, its National Board
for Safeguarding Children.

It welcomed the UN proposal that the church
conduct an internal inquiry into the four congregations concerned and
that those found responsible for offences “be sanctioned and reported to
national judicial authorities for prosecution purposes”.

The four congregations involved are the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

They ran 10 laundries in this State between 1922 and 1996 when the last one, at Sean McDermott Street in Dublin, closed.

Mr
Shatter also said all four congregations were “co-operating” with the
Government scheme to compensate the women through “providing all the
available records and verifications as requested”.

He
added that to date, 680 applications had been received by the scheme,
with “over 280 letters of formal offer” made.

So far “144 women have
accepted the formal offer and as at the end of January payments issued
to over 100 applicants totalling €3.5 million”, he said.